Final Project

This is the final version of my final project. Of course there are always tweaks to be made which I'm sure I will do, but here it is.


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Final Project- 3rd shoot

I was able to photograph Ali at work at the Hampton Inn for a little bit this afternoon. Here's a few selects.

Final Project - 2nd Shoot

Yesterday I was able to photograph Ali and his family again. This time I felt more comfortable taking photos, however, sometimes I still have a hard time getting Ali to act more natural. He often wants to be more of a host to me rather than just going about his day. I'm hoping that when I go to photograph him at work it'll be better. Also since his wife was at work, he didn't do any gardening because it's something they like to do together so I'm hoping I can still shoot that sometime soon. Here are a few of my favorites.

Final Project - 1st shoot

For my final project I am working with a man named Ali who is an Iraqi refugee living in Columbia with his wife and daughter. The first time I met with him I didn't take any photos because I just wanted to get to know him. Tonight I was able to meet his wife and daughter and spent some time with them as well. I took a few photos but not many because I'm still getting to know them. Tonight I accompanied them to Menards to look for things for their garden that they are working on at their new home. Ali said they like to go look for fun and to get ideas for their garden even though they can't always buy. After Menards they went to get coffee at Starbucks. Here are a few photos that I took while with them tonight.

Little 500

So over the weekend I went to the Little 500 race at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. It's a 200 lap bicycle race that students compete in. This year there were 33 teams and it took a little over 2 hours for the winner to complete the race. I didn't have my good camera with me, but I took some photos with my point and shoot from the stands. It would have been really fun to shoot if I had my camera and proper credentials but either way I still took some good photos and thought I'd share!

This was during the singing of the National Anthem  - pretty cool that they had a parachute jumper with an American flag.

 

Portraits on the Quad

My boyfriend's mom asked me to take photos of him for graduation announcements today. I hadn't taken the stereotypical picture of the columns before so I was excited for the excuse to do so. We were in a bit of a rush so unfortunately I didn't have as much time to play as I would have liked but oh well, here's what I've got!

Final Food Project

This is my final edit for my food allergy project. In retrospect, there are things I would have liked to have done that I either didn't think of until too late or that just simply didn't work out. But all in all, I'm glad I was able to find this subject and thought I got a great interview from her.



Untitled from Ally Appelbaum on Vimeo.

A new direction for my food project

So while on spring break I was able to meet up with a high school girl in St. Louis who had a severe peanut allergy. I worked with her and was able to photograph her and do an audio interview with her, however, the family was a little weird about where I could photograph. I wasn't able to photograph her in her home or at school, so I basically have pictures of her grocery shopping with her mom and going out to eat. I think the audio is really going to carry this story, but overall I'm glad I was able to meet with her.
Here are a few of my favorite photos that I plan on using in the short multimedia piece.

Spring Break at Home

So for Spring Break I just came home to spend some time with my family in St. Louis. It's been very relaxing. The other day I was up early and the light was pretty so I took a few photos of the view from my front porch.

Beginning Stages of Food Project

So for my portion of the food documentary I've been attempting to do a photo essay on food allergies, specifically gluten. So far it's been moving pretty slowly with few contacts. I have been able to photograph a girl who is a sophomore at MU and she lives in a sorority house on campus. I went to photograph her eating dinner at her house. I also hope to photograph the kinds of groceries she buys and her meal being prepared at the house. The chef makes a point to make sure there are gluten and dairy free options for her. In addition to photographing Kelsey, I hope to try to photograph different places around Columbia that offer gluten free choices for others like Kelsey.
The meal I was there for was pasta so Kelsey had her own heaping plate of gluten free pasta and a bowl of meatballs and sauce that had been prepared separately.
Here is what I have so far.

Quidditch on the Quad

So as I was about to leave campus today I walked by the quad and saw people playing quidditch (fictional sport in Harry Potter books for those who weren't sure). I decided why not take some pictures. I wish I had had a longer lens on me, but enjoyed myself regardless. Also, I think it would have been nicer had the light been better.

Portraits

I did a favor for my friend and took some portraits of him at KOMU for his resume. Portraits can be tough, I think the key is getting the person to act like him/herself and not focus so much on the camera. The issue is how to do this, sometimes I feel it's easier than others. It's not only about making your subject comfortable, but also feeling comfortable and confident in your own abilities. This was a good experience for me, because even though I'm friends with him, it was still an environment that I wasn't necessarily comfortable in and I still had to make him feel comfortable with the camera in order to get the pictures. I found it best when I had him doing things in his environment instead of just posing for me. Technically, the light was annoying, and I wish I had brought my flash to play around with.
So here is James Jobes 

Magic House

Over the weekend I went to the Magic House in St. Louis for my friend's daughter's 1st birthday party. I figured it would be a good opportunity to take some pictures since I hadn't had the chance in awhile. It was a lot of fun and I think I got some nice shots!

Presentations

Over the last few days I've gotten the opportunity to hear two great photojournalists give presentations - Lauren Greenfield and Brian Storm.

What I took away from both is the amount of time spent on the most successful projects. Storm talked about how photojournalists had worked for 5 to 10 and even up to 16 years on one project. Greenfield also spent significant amounts of time working on her documentary projects.

Greenfield talked about how she got the inspiration for her projects partly from her own teenage years. This made me think about where I get my inspiration from. I had a hard time figuring out the answer to this question, which I think is a problem. I feel like I get most of my story ideas from friends -  I listen to issues they feel strongly about or think are important and I then take on an interest. I think this is good in a sense that I'm learning from other people and using others to brainstorm ideas with me, but I need to find my own passion and what I want to cover. I think the reason it's hard for me to imagine spending so much time on a project is because I've never experienced a passion to do so.

I'm not quite sure how to remedy this. A reading we did in capstone last week was very interesting and I think it will greatly help me in the search for stories. It was about coming up with ideas, and since this is the hardest part of photojournalism for me, I found it very interesting and informative. I hope I am able to start using these tips to help advance my photojournalism.

Self Critique for One Day Photo Story

So this is a little delayed but I figured I'd talk a little bit about the process of shooting my one day story. I got there at 8:00 am and stayed with Josh for basically the whole process of brewing beer. It was a lot more sitting around than I thought it would be. Visually it was pretty tough to shoot in the brewery because the lighting was bad but I also don't think a flash would have helped much. It was a lot of fun though, despite the amount of downtime we had. I challenged myself to shoot in different ways and to really work on my composition throughout the day. I learned in staff that I often struggle with composition and really framing my shots so I made that my main focus on this shoot. I think my edit reflects my work with composition on this shoot. The shots I think I did really well on with this are the lead shot, the second shot, and the closing shot. Overall I'm happy with my assignment and felt good about the final edit I put together. I wanted to portray less of the process of making beer and more of how his typical days go and how he feels about what he does. I think this edit does that, though I do wish I could cut it down. Sometimes I think I get too passionate about certain photos and don't want to cut them out (an example of this is the tight portrait I took of him). Looking through my story, I think I would take that portrait out, but other than that I'm not sure which I would eliminate.

Brewing for a Living

I took photos of Josh Rein as he went through his day brewing beer for Broadway Brewery. Visually, it was challenging but in a good way. I got to play around with a lot of different angles and viewpoints. The hardest part for me was editing it down. I had a lot of photos that I really liked and it was a matter of which told the best story of what it's like to do this job.

Josh Rein examines a sheet of different kinds of hops to use in his future beer making endeavors at Broadway Brewery on Tuesday, February 14, 2012. Rein has been one of the main beer brewers at Broadway Brewery since it opened in December of 2009.

Rein mashes bags of grain as part of the process of making Kolsch beer at Broadway Brewery on Tuesday, February 14, 2012. The brewery part of the restaurant is located directly behind the bar and is where all the beers served at the restaurant are brewed and stored.

Rein lifts bags of grain to be taken to the brewery in order to make Kolsch beer on Tuesday, February 14, 2012. Kolsch, a German style beer, requires seven bags of grain.

Rein checks the levels before beginning the brewing process of Kolsch beer on Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at Broadway Brewery. Rein started brewing beer at home in 2003 and enjoys how what started as a hobby has turned into a job opportunity for him.

Water pours onto the grains during the beer making process.

Rein mashes bags of grain at Broadway Brewery on Tuesday, February 14, 2012. Rein says in a typical day there's only about four hours of actual work and then it's a lot of checking levels and monitoring the machines.

Rein works in the brewery located behind the bar at Broadway Brewery. Rein said since the restaurant has opened in December of 2009, they've brewed around 400 barrels of beer a year.

    Rein describes the new beer on tap, the Ginger Chocolate Stout, that would debut that night, to other employees at Broadway Brewery on Tuesday, February 14, 2012. The Ginger Chocolate Stout is a recipe that Rein came up with. Even though he is not the head brew master for the brewery, he has the opportunity to pitch ideas for new beers that are made.

Photos from Staff

So I haven't had a lot of time to go out with my camera to take photos, unfortunately but I thought I'd finally put some of my favorite photos from staff up.

This first one is from an event at the Humane Society. It was a great, funny moment and I was glad I was able to capture it.

Rachel Squires tries to keep her dog Miley under control outside the BBQ stand at the Hound Dog Homecoming at the Central Missouri Humane Society on Saturday afternoon, Oct. 1, 2011. The event celebrates adopted pets and the funds raised goes to pets who are still without a home in Mid-Missouri.

This one was taken as part of the 48 hours in football weekend in Columbia. It was at a youth football game. It was a lot of fun to shoot youth football, I focused less on the action and more on the feature side of it.

Taylor Belt waits on the sidelines before a Columbia Youth Football League game at Cosmo Park on Sunday, Oct. 23, 2011. The Columbia Youth Football League allows young girls to also play in the league.

I just like this next one because of the light and the colors and felt it was nicely composed. Simple feature cruising photo.

Derek Long rakes leaves at a house on Rollins Rd. on Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 9, 2011. Long helps the woman who lives at the house with her yard work and said he usually rakes enough leaves to fill 350 bags each fall. Long rakes leaves here once a week.

This is a basketball shot that I really like. I love shooting basketball, its probably my favorite thing to shoot. Pretty typical shot but I still like it.

MU guard Marcus Denmon goes for a layup during the first half of the MU vs. Binghamton game at Mizzou Arena on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011.